Toronto LRT Information Blog

I have been grappling for awhile with an appropriate term for what we know as subway. In most every case, when one uses the word in the GTA, they are referring to the TTC’s HRT: the Yonge-University-Spadina line, the Bloor-Danforth line, or the Sheppard line.

But if you take a light rail line, and run it in a tunnel, isn’t that a subway? Or do you call it a streetcar-subway, or an LRT-subway?

Merrriam-Webster defines subway as:

an underground way; as
a: a passage under a street (as for pedestrians, power cables, or water or gas mains)
b: a usually electric underground railway
c: underpass

Meanings a and c are clearly not what we are talking about, but both HRT and LRT in a tunnel are described by definition b.

Referring to the YUS and BD lines as HRT avoids this confusion, but many are unfamiliar with the term HRT. To add another complication, some will use HRT to also include Commuter Rail (like GO Trains).

So, here is the nomenclature I have decided to use throughout the Toronto LRT Information Page and this blog:

subway: a tunneled section of a transit line, whether for HRT, LRT,  or even BRT

Subway: part or all of the TTC Subway network; as in, extending the Spadina Subway to Vaughan

Clear as mud? I just need to avoid starting a sentence with the first use.

An update to the York Region Rapid Transit Options page now includes a rendering of a possible VIVA LRT operating on Yonge Street:

Interestingly, this LRV is passing the constituency office of Reza Moridi, the Richmond Hill MPP. You may recall that I previously posted a summary of my impression of the MPPs in Richmond Hill and Thornhill after last fall’s election. In my summary, I was not struck with an overwhelming feeling of transit support from Mr. Moridi. He gave me more of an impression that he would just go along with whatever his party’s brass said was good.  Perhaps the idea of rapid transit steps from his office might inspire some independent thinking.

The TTC and the city held two Environmental Assessment open houses this week. The first was on Tuesday at Sts. Peter and Paul Banquet Hall on Milner Avenue, which covered the Sheppard East LRT and the proposed extension(s) of the SRT. The second was held this evening at Sir John A MacDonald Collegiate on Pharmacy Avenue.

I had the chance to visit tonight’s open house and was quite impressed with the turnout:

Listening to some of the questions people were asking, there is still a great deal of information about LRT that needs to get out to the general public. It is nice to see people making the effort to seek information at such a meeting.

There was also a great deal of effort given to filling in the comment sheets by a number of the visitors. Hopefully, not too many of them were simply writing, “just extend the Sheppard subway line“.

The editorial cartoonist for the Hamilton Spectator might be onto something:

You can read a blog entry on this by Ryan McGreal at Raise the Hammer.

The latest additions to the examples of other cities on this site are the Buffalo and Cleveland pages.